


leave your mark

by parahelios



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Post-Canon, Suggestive Themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-14
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2020-12-16 01:21:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21027920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/parahelios/pseuds/parahelios
Summary: Some moments won't make it into the history books, but that doesn't mean they never happened at all.(Sylvix Week 2019, Day 1: Reunion)





	leave your mark

**Author's Note:**

> hi! i have never written anything for fire emblem in my life but three houses has entirely consumed me. note that i took some creative liberties with one of felix's canon endings, but this isn't really meant to follow any particular route so i kept it very vague. imagine whatever you'd like, basically!
> 
> also, thank you so much to the organizers of sylvix week -- without you, it probably would have taken me another three months to sum up the courage to post anything! please accept my humble contribution and know that i am so very grateful!

Coming back to Garreg Mach Monastery and realizing that his room isn't _his room_ anymore is a stranger feeling than he had ever predicted it to be.

It's a few weeks still before the new school year starts, so the dormitories are empty and Sylvain can't resist the chance to take a stroll down memory lane. The renovation efforts after the war have caused a significant majority of the structure to be updated or rebuilt, but there are some sections that haven't changed at all over the years. There are cracks in the stone and marks in the wood that he remembers from his academy days, and new ones that showed up after it had been abandoned during the war and ravaged by bandits.

Sylvain runs his hands along the wall as he enters the last segment of the second floor, and when his fingers pass over a distinctive mark a grin tugs at his lips.

(They're working together in Dimitri's room when Dimitri hands Sylvain the well-loved copy of _Legends of Chivalry_ he has on loan from Ingrid, except Sylvain encourages Dimitri to toss it over so that neither of them have to get up from their spots and the book ends up flying through the open doorway and shattering against the wall. Before that moment, Sylvain hadn't even _known_ books could shatter like that, but he'd supposed it would have been unfair to expect paper to win a fight against stone.

When word gets around to Ingrid about the incident – which is very quickly, because that's how it is at the Officers' Academy – she confronts them at dinner. Sylvain clearly remembers Ingrid having to carefully set her steak knife down and fold her hands in her lap, and that's how she escapes being arrested for high treason against the Crown Prince of Faerghus. Ashe also gives the two of them a long look of profound disappointment and sadness, and it's a look Sylvain decides he never wants to be on the receiving end of again.)

His old room hasn't seen any of Sylvain's personal effects in nearly ten years, so at first it hardly looks like his old room at all. And then he walks around and looks a little closer, and the place he exists in starts to transform into the place he knows in his memories. 

One of the floorboards by the doorway still creaks when he steps on it;

("_Shit!_" Felix swears in a hiss as he pulls his foot back, because it's not even that loud and it's doubtful anyone besides the two of them even heard it – but when you're sneaking around where you oughtn't in the middle of the night, any sound is like a crack of thunder.

"Watch out for the one floorboard," Sylvain says from the bed, late and unhelpful. "It creaks.")

there's a long, horizontal scrape in the wall that perfectly lines up with the height of the bedpost;

("I think the bed shifted," mumbles Felix into Sylvain's shoulder.

They're both coated in sweat, and Felix's hair – long pulled loose from its usual style – is fanned out and partly stuck to Sylvain's chest. A few wayward strands are tickling at his throat, but if he says anything, Felix might _move_, and that's unacceptable.

"We can push it back in the morning," murmurs Sylvain, eyes closed, and he lifts his head just enough to bring his lips to the top of Felix's before dropping it back down against the pillow.

He's nearly asleep, about to catch a passing daydream that smells like campfire smoke and winter pine, when Felix's fingers find his and stay laced into them for the rest of the night.)

there is a burn mark on the ceiling just above the desk;

("Why do I smell fire?" Dimitri sighs rather than asks, from the other side of a door that Sylvain is refusing to open until he has a shirt on, because his back is covered in scratch marks but Felix is the only one who has been in his room all evening, and Dimitri can be a bit clueless about certain topics but is definitely not _that_ stupid.

"We're practicing fire magic," he calls out in return, catching the shirt that Felix tosses at him and quickly tugging it on. Felix is already dressed and sitting in his desk chair, looking awfully bored for someone who just inadvertently conjured a fireball and scorched the room.

"You're practicing fire magic," says Dimitri, when Sylvain opens the door, "in your bedroom."

"Yes," says Sylvain.

"Knowing full well that your bedroom is furnished almost entirely with wood."

"It sounds foolish when you put it like that," says Sylvain, and he can't help but grin when Dimitri's brow furrows.

Sylvain watches Dimitri struggle with some sort of internal debate, gaze darting towards Felix briefly, before he finally manages to say, "Well, uh... good luck. Please be safe."

That's when it occurs to Sylvain that Dimitri is conflicted because he has realized that scolding Sylvain for practicing magic with Felix in his bedroom is a much lesser evil than scolding Sylvain for bringing women back to his bedroom, and the irony is so thick it makes him want to laugh.

"Can't promise anything, Your Highness," says Sylvain with a wink, and the last thing he sees before he closes the door again is Dimitri's hand slowly coming up to meet his own face.)

and just as he's about to look for the initials he'd engraved somewhere on the door frame, a figure steps out of his memories and on to a creaky floorboard.

"Why did I have a feeling I'd find you in here?" Felix says.

Sylvain locates his initials and brushes his thumb over the letters, then looks over at Felix with a wide smile.

"Hey. I heard about your new job and wanted to congratulate you," he says, and his smile quirks playfully as he adds, "_Professor_."

Felix might _look_ irritated, but the flush on his cheeks says something else.

"Don't tell me you were looking for me in your old dorm room," he says, and he's all crossed arms, cocked hip, and raised brows now, all _himself_, and Sylvain is struck with so much sudden fondness that he finds it hard to breathe.

"Well, I did find you here," says Sylvain, to which Felix gives a short huff of amusement. "You know, on that note, did you ever notice how we spent a lot of time here in my room, and never any time in your room? Why do you think that was?"

"You liked cleaning more," says Felix with a shrug. "And I liked the privacy."

"Where's the room you have now?" asks Sylvain, only just realizing that they're standing much closer together than they were a moment ago and he's not exactly sure how they got there.

"Staff quarters," says Felix, as if Sylvain's an idiot.

"I'd love a tour," says Sylvain, who is very smart, actually. 

Later, when he's got Felix tucked into his chest and an arm loosely curled around his back, Sylvain gazes up at the ceiling and whispers, "I missed you."

Felix mumbles something into his shoulder that sounds like, "Stop leaving," and Sylvain can't tell who it's directed at, but he agrees anyway, right through the night to the next morning and for the rest of their lives.

**Author's Note:**

> don't get any weird ideas about the professor thing, sylvain


End file.
